Public preferences for marine plastic litter management across Europe

Abstract

Plastic pollution is one of the most challenging problems affecting the marine environment of our time. Based on a unique dataset covering four European seas and eight European countries, this paper adds to the limited empirical evidence base related to the societal welfare effects of marine litter management. We use a discrete choice experiment to elicit public willingness-to-pay (WTP) for macro and micro plastic removal to achieve Good Environmental Status across European seas as required by the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Using a common valuation design and following best-practice guidelines, we draw comparisons between countries, seas and policy contexts. European citizens have strong preferences to improve the environmental status of the marine environment by removing and reducing both micro and macro plastic litter and implementing preventive measures favouring a pan-European approach. However, public WTP estimates differ significantly across European countries and seas. We explain why and discuss implications for policymaking.

Keywords: Choice experiment; Good environmental status; Macro plastic; Marine litter; Marine strategy framework directive; Micro plastic; Plastic litter.

Fig. 1

Overview of the 8 European countries surveyed in this study and the 4 regional European seas bordered by these countries.

Fig. 2

Example choice card.

Fig. 3

Choice behavior across the alternatives and the country samples (in %). Note: The number of observations per sample is equal to the number of respondents (see Table 1) times the number of choices. For Denmark, for example, the number of observations is 6000 (1000 × 6).

Fig. 4

Marginal WTP estimates (in € per month per household) based on the choice models presented in Table 3.